The Verbose Traveller

Tour day 3 - 30th March Another jam-packed day in Israel ahead of us as we said farewell to the lovely Sea of Galilee. Our first stop this morning was the Jordan River baptismal site, where a number of our group braved the cold waters of the river to renew their baptismal covenant with the Lord. It was a lovely time of celebration for the whole group, even those of us who stayed dry and took the photos. After the baptisms were all done, and everyone was dry and clothed again, we set off for Beit She’an/Scythopolis, one of the 10 cities of the decapolis. This place is yet another amazing archeological experience, with mind-blowing ancient ruins, some dating to 3500 BCE, but I have to confess I’m reaching my threshold for ancient-ruin-overload, we are just SATURATED with history!! Yakov tells us that this area has two massive tectonic plates, one running north-south, the other south-north, and they have shifted significantly over the years, in some places up to 107km. These ...

Tour day 2 - 29th March We lost an hour during the night as Israel changed to daylight savings. We lost the good weather too, and woke in the morning to low cloud over the Sea of Galilee and a light drizzle. It still looked amazing though, as we set off after breakfast, trekking up the eastern shore of the lake, and I found myself wondering where Jesus might have trod the ground............. or where exactly he walked on the water. Our first leg took us around the eastern and northern shores of the lake, through Rosh Pinna, past Tel Hazor, through the Hula Valley in the Upper Galilee, to Qiryat Shemona. This town suffered tens of thousands of rocket attacks from Lebanon through the 70s and 80s but the people stayed and endured and the town is now thriving and very pretty. Yakov informed us that Israel is a haven for birds migrating in both directions, and they take a rest stop around the lakes in the Hula Valley. I would too, it’s lush and beautiful. As we travelled we came c...

Tour day 1 - Thursday 28th March We joined up with our tour group in Netanya last night for dinner, and discovered that we are, in fact, joining them rather than all starting out afresh. They have been together as a group for a couple of days already, visiting Jordan, and are now on the Israel leg of their trip. So we are the newbies. The group is almost 100% Americans and Canadians, apart from the 6.66% Australians. That would be us!! And our tour guide, Yakov, of course, who is a local. They are a friendly bunch, and we enjoyed getting to know a little about some of them over dinner. This morning our wake up call was at 5.30am, groan! Breakfast was at 6.30am, then it was check out from the hotel and check luggage onto the bus at 7.15am before we set off around 7.30am. Not every morning will be like that, but there will be no sleeping in for the next couple of weeks, that’s for sure!! Yakov taught us a couple of helpful phrases before we headed off - “boker tov” which means “...